


The night once ruled my imagination

by imustspeakmyheart



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Multi, Polyamory, nebulously post-canon, the fic focuses more stronly on damien and arum but rilla is there and very much in the relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 01:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14739656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imustspeakmyheart/pseuds/imustspeakmyheart
Summary: Arum once said to Damien, "If you expect me to sit through another sappy little poem first, hand me that knife and I'll kill myself," and he's never quite forgotten that.Or, Damien feels that he cannot speak his heart to Arum's face, so he starts to do it as Arum sleeps. It doesn't take long for Arum to notice.





	The night once ruled my imagination

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Venus by Sleeping at Last

It’s the third time that Arum has woken in the middle of the night to Damien’s soft murmuring voice. Arum’s arms are wrapped tightly around his knight, whose face is buried in his collarbone allowing Arum to feel Damien’s lips move against his scales. Just like the last times this had happened, he doesn’t move a muscle, gives no indication that he’s awake. He simply listens to Damien whispering softly and affectionately in the same way he’s so often heard him speak to Rilla.

“My lily, my jewel, my soul sings when we are together and weeps when we must wander apart. No day goes past that I don’t thank Saint Damien for the gift of you… For your brilliant mind, your rapturous heart which so thoroughly captivates mine! Oh Arum, you have no idea, or you must of course know… But do you? It haunts my waking thoughts, that you might not know how much you are adored, immeasurably, inconceivably so!”

Arum thinks he can detect a hint of guilt in Damien’s voice there, creeping around the edges of his words. Experimentally, Arum shifts as if in his sleep at Damien’s slightly louder exclamation. As expected, Damien stops the onset of his next sentence and stiffens, catching himself in a more violent jolt as he doesn’t want to wake Arum. The lizard’s senses are filled with Damien’s racing heartbeat and the taste of fear in the air around him. After long moments of tense silence, Damien seems convinced that Arum is still asleep and lets out a little relieved sigh.

“I must speak my heart, my love…” Damien continues, devolving into a long and heartfelt monologue that Arum wishes his honeysuckle had wanted him awake for. Without meaning to, he tightens his grip on Damien and buries his nose in the man’s hair as well as he can in their position. Arum’s frill trembles involuntarily in reaction to the heady affection that wells up inside of him. That Damien could ever think that he does not feel loved… The idea is preposterous to Arum. Again, Damien stops his words and in their absence begins tracing the hand that’s wrapped around Arum’s back soothingly along his spine. It becomes apparent that the knight thinks Arum is having a nightmare when his voice picks up again, all reassurance and calm with no trace of the former passion with which he’d spoken.

“Shh, Arum, be still. You have your very own knight in, well, not armour right now, but you’d be surprised at the advantage it brings not to be weighed down by mail! Your very own knight in a flimsy tunic, then. My, aren’t you lucky!”

Arum chooses that moment to shift again, pretending to blink his eyes open slowly as if he’s only just removing himself from the embrace of sleep.

“Calming words are not your forte, it seems, Honeysuckle.” He has the satisfaction of watching his knight pull back from their embrace only to sputter half-hearted protests that are barely words. Arum chuckles deeply in this throat and coaxes them both back to sleep, worries forgotten for now.

\ \ \

As has become custom in their relationship, when Arum doesn’t understand Damien and feels too foolish to discuss it with him first Arum goes to Rilla for help. Somehow, his pride can permit him to be seen as a fool by Rilla, since he feels that’s how she sees him most of the time anyway. Begrudgingly, Arum can’t exactly fault her for that. He’s had to admit to himself many times before that no one is an even match for her brilliance, not even the Lord of Titan’s Blooms. Between his own exploits and Damien’s work as a knight, it’s Rilla he tends to see most.

So Arum finds himself sitting against a tree not far from her little house, Rilla nestled between his stretched legs as he gently braids her hair. Rilla herself is picking through a basket of herbs that she’d gathered that afternoon, sorting them out in neat bundles and occasionally picking Arum’s brain about medicinal applications that she might not have thought about yet. They work well together like that, bouncing ideas off of each other in a manner infinitely more satisfying than trying to think through problems by themselves.

There’s a lull in conversation, Rilla’s braid now long finished. Arum has busied himself by arranging flowers in her hair, the little bower they were occupying being quite prolific with them. While his hands are occupied, his mind is less so.

“Amaryllis?” He asks. Rilla hums and turns her head slightly back towards him to show him that she’s listening.

“You know how Damien has a tendency towards romantic monologue when he speaks to you. Or, about you. He enjoys regaling you.” Arum feels Rilla’s laugh as much as he hears it.

“Oh, does he? I never would have noticed.” Arum can hear the smile in her voice. “What about it?”

Arum lets his tail flop around the flowerbed while he thinks of how to phrase his question, a trilling noise forming at the back of his throat. Rilla flashes him a look over her shoulder. She knows full well that it’s a sign that he’s nervous.

“Recently he’s taken on a habit of doing _that_ while I am… asleep. He whispers the words while hiding in my embrace, when he’s sure I am not awake to hear it. I can’t understand why.” The sound of rattling stirs the air, louder now, a testament to Arum’s agitation. The basket with herbs is set aside and Rilla shifts. Arum loosens his lower pair of arms around her, allowing her to turn around and face him, legs folded comfortably over Arum’s. She strokes a soothing hand along Arum’s frill and little by little the anxious rattling subsides.

“What exactly are you worried about?”

“Worried? I’m not-“ Rilla levels him with a flat look. He flicks out his tongue towards her face in indignation, though he knows that trying to resist one of these looks of hers is of no use. He relents.

“Is he scared? Does he not trust me? Does he think I wouldn’t want to hear it, that I don’t feel the same? Is it a human thing? You know your human customs still confound me to this day.”

“Arum, slow down. You almost sound like Damien with all your worrying.”

Arum balks at that, clasping his mouth closed and feeling his frill rise slightly in embarrassment. Rilla is quick to soothe him, though she still raises a brow at him. She knows full well how hard it is for him to admit to feelings such as these and would never make fun of him for it, but she also knows when to check his worry before he becomes ensnared in it. She’s seen the way it steals the very breath from Damien’s lungs and has been the one to restore that breath countless times, so Arum trusts her. He breathes.

“Perhaps he is still ashamed of his… of his feelings. For me. Do you think he’s ashamed, Amaryllis?”

Rilla shifts, taking one of Arum’s hands in hers and playing with his claws, absentmindedly trailing a finger over his palm. She’s thinking and Arum allows himself to be distracted too for a moment. He thinks of the improbability of this whole situation, of all the events that led him here, sitting in a field with a human woman tenderly tracing patterns over the same clawed hands that should logically have made her fear him. He feels a surge of emotion in his breast, a rattling rising unbidden from his throat.

When Rilla looks up at him again with a questioning smile, he summons the most unaffected expression on his face that he can muster. Rilla’s smile tell him that she’s not fooled. He’s about to grumble something questioning her silly smile when Rilla leans forward and wraps her arms around him, pillowing her head against his chest.

“You two are such impossible idiots.”

Arum wants to protest, but recalls the fact that he’s here talking to Rilla, instead of talking directly to Damien about his issues and instead begrudgingly hugs her to him lightly with all four of his arms. He nuzzles his nose into her hair, smelling sweetly of flowers and herbs and softly huffs out a breath just to hear her chuckle as it ruffles her hair.

“Just talk to him about it Arum. You know him, he can’t help but speak his heart if you ask him directly. Don’t torture yourself by keeping this inside. Damien will always assume the worst thing. I think he just needs assurance, something is clearly bothering him and he doesn’t think you want to talk about it, so he doesn’t.”

Arum sighs and pulls back from the embrace, loosening his grip so Rilla can sit back up. She looks up at him with that knowing smile he so adores and he can’t help but answer her open affectionate expression.

“Thank you, Amaryllis.” With earnest feeling he presses his lips gently to hers, feeling Rilla smile into the kiss.

\ \ \

It’s a swelteringly hot day and sweat beads on Damien’s brow as he lunges out of the way of one of Arum’s knives, expertly maneuvering himself around the lizard’s other arms aiming to grab him. Laughing triumphantly, Damien’s chest heaves up and down at the exertion. Even with the canopy stretching thickly over the dry piece of swamp, the warmth penetrates the foliage and remains trapped there. Arum is used to this kind of heat, enjoys the way it seeps into his skin and sinks into his very blood. He has to admit to taking it a bit easy on his human, who is visibly struggling with sluggish limbs not quick enough to keep up the pace.

With the fight not taking up all of his attention, his mind inevitably wanders; more specifically they wander towards the issue that had been eating at him for weeks. He’d wanted to wait for a different moment to talk to Damien, the right moment, but with his mind reeling from the adrenaline of the practice fight, no less attributed to watching Damien strain himself to keep up, sweat gleaming on his exposed skin, Arum can’t think of a better time. They were used to speaking their hearts during battle; it was easier when wrapped up in their intricate dance around each other, Damien’s mind having no chance of slowing down and catching up to the anxiety he would otherwise undoubtedly feel.

“Honeysuckle?” Arum starts, sweeping his tail close to Damien’s legs, who manages to jump over it in time and use the momentum to arc his knife at Arum’s shoulder. He just gets a breathy hum in acknowledgement and for a moment Arum is too busy parrying Damien’s thrusts and jabs to continue talking.

“I’ve noticed,” he grabs one of Damien’s wrists and twists his body away from the sharp edge in his hand, “that you’ve been… Thinking that I was asleep, you’ve been speaking to me. Like you speak to Rilla. You know, those flowery soliloquies you do.” As Arum was speaking, Damien had tried to get behind him, out of reach of his four arms. Now Damien stood still, having teetered to a stop as soon as it registered what Arum was talking about, wiping his brow with his sleeve and breathing heavy, looking at Arum like a cornered deer.

“W-what? I haven’t the faintest idea of what you mean!”

Their sparring match decidedly being over, Arum relaxes his body out of its defensive stance. So much for discussing this during their play fight. Arum wants to be irritated at Damien’s denial, but he knows that it’s simply his lover’s first defence mechanism. It wouldn’t last after some more gentle prodding into the subject. Just as Rilla had told him, if he just talks to Damien all will be well. He just has to make himself believe that and push his pesky pride aside for a moment.

“Don’t you? I must have been imagining it then.” Arum says drily, sheathing his knives and flexing his arms to cool down after the exertion of the fight. His response only seems to make Damien look all the more defensive.

“Yes! Yes, you absolutely must have been.” Damien’s reply is quick, rattled out of his mouth too fast for the words to have been truthful. Arum huffs a breath out of his nose and starts to approach his fumbling knight.

“Honeysuckle, you needn’t lie to me. You are not,” He pauses, looking into Damien’s face and raising a cautious claw to smooth back some stray hair that was sticking to his forehead, “ _afraid_ of me are you? I should hope we have reached a point that we may be honest with each other without fear.” His brow drawn in slightly with worry, Arum cocks his head to the side. A soft rattle sounds in his throat.

“Of course not, my love! Never! It’s simply that –”

Damien takes a shaky breath and reaches a hand up to cover Arum’s scaled one, still cradling the side of his head. His bottom lip trembles in a way Arum has come to recognize whenever Damien has something to say, but is holding himself back, unsure of the propriety of his words. Arum is about to say something reassuring, not able to stand the wait any longer, when those held back words all come rushing out at once.

“Oh dearest one, I have lied to you… You’re absolutely right, I _have_ been regaling you under the cover of night, I _have_ been scared of you knowing about it, but you must understand I—. Well, you see… I just remember that night that we met and you said that I should give you my knife if I was going to continue to speak in poetics, as is my penchant, I’ll grant, but I simply thought you still wouldn’t like it now that we’re actually… And although you feel like Rilla, you know that Arum, and it’s so easy with her! I wasn’t sure…”

During his speech Damien had removed his hand from covering Arum’s, gesturing wildly with his hands one second and wringing them together the next. Arum can see Damien start on the downward spiral towards an anxiety attack, words getting more and more jumbled as all his disjointed thoughts come pouring out with abandon, unstoppable like a waterfall down a cliff. So he takes Damien’s fidgeting hands in two of his own, preventing him from picking at the skin around his fingers as he tends to do until he bleeds when things get really bad, and raises another hand to gently card through the human’s hair. The sensation is calming to him, Arum knows. He’s seen Rilla do it a hundred times over, usually accompanied by the treat of Rilla’s sonorous voice as she sings. Arum only has his speech, but he’d been able to calm Damien down before. He’d like to think he knows his Honeysuckle well enough.

“Calmly now, Honeysuckle.” Arum leans down and flicks out his tongue towards one of Damien’s cheeks, a sign of affections both his humans are familiar with. “It’s alright.”

Damien starts speaking again almost miserably, having to justify himself now that he sees the opportunity to speak without restraint. As Rilla had said, once you got Damien talking there was no stopping him.

“My love, I always have the urge to speak my heart, I cannot bear it keep things inside of my mind for too long. It was troubling my sleep, so I simply thought… I’d just speak to you like that, without the fear of you hearing and _hating_ my words. I realize now that this was foolish. Your keen lizard’s senses were privy to my every utterance…” Damien sounds resigned at that, pouting slightly.

Arum isn’t sure whether he wants to laugh or be deeply ashamed of himself for ever making Damien think that he had to hide such a big part of his feelings from him. He did feel shame. All this time he’d thought it was something to do with Damien feeling differently about him, or feeling scared, or embarrassed. To think that it was all caused by some flippant remark he’d made during their very first meeting when whatever he’d felt for Damien had only been a mere seed compared to the budding flower that was their love now.  
Arum leans down and presses the tip of his snout to Damien’s forehead, a slow affectionate sound building up in his throat.

“You know you don’t need to hide any part of your heart from me, my little Honeysuckle. You don’t need the cloak of night to speak of your love. Your poetry is a skill I much admire. And I’m sure Rilla wouldn’t mind not being the sole receptor of your attentions anymore, this way you have double the practice for your poetic talents.”

Damien’s face lights up and Arum can feel the beating of his knight’s heart speed up for quite another reason than before.

“Thank you, my love.” He says, softly. Those four words make Arum feel light in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time.

\ \ \

That night all three of them are sprawled in bed, Damien and Rilla curled into Arum’s chest on either side of him, wrapped securely in his two sets of arms. His tail curls lazily around Damien’s legs. Arum had been deeply asleep, which happened more easily with two warm bodies pressed so firmly against him, when he is was woken by the soft singing of the Keep. As awareness comes back to him Arum feels a finger tracing shapes on the scales of his chest. Damien’s side. He also hears Damien’s hushed voice, berating the Keep and asking it to be silent before he continues with what had made the Keep so active in the first place.

“You sleep so sweetly, do you know that? So… unburdened.” Damien’s voice is the barest of whispers, the soft vibrations of which almost lull Arum back to sleep. “I could write just as many sonnets about the hotness of your temper as I could about the contented cooing that escapes you in undisturbed slumber. Ah, my love.” Arum is wide awake now, but this time he won’t pretend to be asleep. Blinking his eyes open, he shifts his head to nuzzle into the crown of Damien’s hair. He feels Damien stiffen and pause in his words, the hand that was idly stroking patterns into his chest stilling momentarily.

“Don’t stop now.” Arum says into Damien’s hair, his breath ruffling the short strands.

“Arum, I- I was just. Practising? I’m sorry you had to wake to this again, my lily flower… I’m afraid this will be a hard habit to break.”

“One step at a time then, why don’t you start now. Speak your heart, Honeysuckle.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do more with this, incorporate the Keep into it more but since I started writing this before The Moonlit Hermit I grew tired of this fic too quickly r i p, but I hope you enjoyed it either way! 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at imustspeakmyheart
> 
> Comments are super appreciated, as always!!
> 
> edit: i dont respond to comments to not inflate my comment count but thank you so much to anyone who's commented (or left kudos!!) it means the world to me


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